Featured photo: The Shreveport-Bossier skyline. Photo by Jim Noetzel.
As a Shreveport-Bossier local who’s also an avid TripAdvisor.com user, I’ve got mixed feelings about the world’s most popular travel website (with more than 350 million unique monthly visitors and 320 million listings for restaurants, hotels and attractions). TripAdvisor.com is like a visitor’s guide to the world that, instead of being written by a tourist bureau, is written by travelers. As a traveler, I love TA. But as a Shreveport-Bossier local, I find it to be embarrassingly incomplete and frustratingly inaccurate.
That’s why 20×49.com and the Shreveport-Bossier Convention and Tourist Bureau have organized two TripAdvisor.com Review-a-Thons, on Saturday, April 30 and Saturday, May 7, with the goal of enlisting the help of locals to make the TripAdvisor.com listings for Shreveport and Bossier City more accurate reflections of our cities. Consider the following information (true as of April 20, 2016):
-TripAdvisor.com only has four listings under the “Nature & Parks” category for Shreveport, and two of those listings are inaccurate. Most popular parks are not listed. Betty Virginia Park, for example, is not listed on TripAdvisor.
-For Bossier City, fully 50% of the restaurants listed among the “10 Best Restaurants” are chain eateries. IHOP is currently listed in the Top 10.*
-Back in Shreveport, the “Sights and Landmarks” category on TripAdvisor.com lists six things, only five of which are actual landmarks. I can think of a dozen significant local historic landmarks offhand that are not currently listed on TripAdvisor.
If you’re a local and a TripAdvisor.com user, please consider joining us at one of our two TripAdvisor.com Review-a-Thon events. We’ll have a few computers for public use, but if you have a tablet or laptop, please bring it. There’ll be prizes for participating, refreshments from Go Greenly and more. Most importantly, we’ll be hanging out with other local TripAdvisor.com users who want to help set the record straight about Shreveport and Bossier City and assist visitors in discovering great things to see and do around here.
Here are the details of the Review-a-Thons:
TripAdvisor.com Review-a-Thon #1
1-5 p.m., Saturday, April 30
Bossier Arts Council
630 Barksdale Boulevard
Bossier City, LA
TripAdvisor.com Review-a-Thon #2
1-4 p.m., Saturday, May 7
Great Raft Brewing Private Event Room
1251 Dalzell Street
Shreveport, LA
20×49.com and the Shreveport-Bossier Convention and Tourist Bureau would like to say “thanks” to the Bossier Arts Council and Great Raft Brewing for hosting these events. If you have any questions about these events, contact organizer Chris Jay at 318-429-0658.
*No disrespect to IHOP intended, a good plate of hash browns never hurt anyone. It’s just not one of the ten best restaurants in the city.
Perhaps that’s the reality. It’s not that great and people see it. Why highlight the good when inevitably it doesn’t matter? As far as IHOP goes, maybe it was at that point. You have to remember, these are made by visitors. It’s a bit selfish to ask your community to butter up Trip Advisor. This is the exact reason I left. Everyone just wants to pay each other on the back and say good job. The real question should be — what prompted someone to list IHOP in a top 10 list for SBC? Was it lack of knowledge? First time visitor? Small amount of time to explore? No vehicle? But no. Let’s just sit around and write in all the things we, SBC ambassadors, love. Not fair, Chris. And you know that.
Hey, I checked the trip advisor for local spots and did not notice a few places I find interesting in the architecture or church category- St. Mark’s, Holy Trinity ,St. George Orthodox Church, and Antoich Baptist Church.
Also, the architecture or design of the Scottish Rites Temple auditorium. I didn’t see the Oakland Cemetery. They may all be on there and I missed it.
Lots of the most interesting historic sites are not currently listed. Last week in the TripAdvisor.com Review-a-Thon on Saturday, April 30, we added several new listings including Betty Virginia Park, RiverView Park and The Logan Mansion. We also added about 75 reviews! We’ll be having the second Review-a-Thon on this Saturday, May 7 beginning at 1 p.m. at Great Raft Brewing, if you have any interest in joining us! Thanks, Kathy!